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Atlus Readies Stylus-Based Surgery Game For DS
Thanks to GameSpot for its article discussing Atlus' announcement of a stylus-utilizing touchscreen surgery game for the Nintendo DS handheld. According to the article about Caduceus: Surgical Operation: "The player steps into the role of a talented young surgeon who must operate on different maladies in each of the game's stages... Actions such as cutting the patient or getting rid of an unidentified parasite are done with the [Nintendo DS] stylus. In addition, while operating, the player must cheer on the patient using the device's voice recognition." There's also a couple of screenshots of the forthcoming Life & Death-eque game, featuring the "Hurted Heart" mission, on the Japanese-language NTT site.
Now I can frag my friends and put them back together!
I like muppets.
don't knock gimmicky controllers. ok, stylus has been done before, in handhelds even (tiger game.com), usually to rather less than thrilling effect. but guess what? technology evolves, grows. i'm sure that the monitor you use today is better than the one you used 10 years ago. same goes for your mouse (at least mine: i use an optical, which is infinitely better than the 'ball' mouse i used 5 years ago) technology grows, and i'm sure nintendo wouldn't put it out if they couldn't make it work. as for light guns and dance mats, even those have evolved: they both date back (in home consoles) at least as far as the NES, but when you use a guncon2 and a ddr dance pad next to, say, the zapper and the 'power pad', the difference is great. the dance mat now has an actual good game to use with it other than that silly track and field game (that we used to cheat at long jump by completely stepping off the mat), and the zapper? every time you fire it the whole screen flashes, with a different shade for a flash around the ducks, but the guncon's effect is a bit more subtle, and while it still flashes, its not the same seizure inducing flash that i dealt with not 3 years ago trying to play house of the dead 2 on my dreamcast.
Has anyone else noticed a trend of games becoming like work? The first example that comes to mind is the common leveling treadmill, in which one has to complete the same task again and again for hours just to get anywhere. Now there are curry-house simulators, sports stat management sims that play like glorified spreadsheets, and a surgery game. What's next, "Answer the Phone eXtreme"?
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Yes, using a stylus is the absolute worst input method ever. That's why we have completely given up writing on paper.
I don't know how much mileage will really come out of it, and this is the only example I've yet seen that wasn't totally lame, but face it - there is no better way to mimic a scalpel than a stylus, at least at this point. How can you not think this is cool? It will necessarily improve hand-eye coordination, which is always good.
Touch screens are cool. A stylus is the only accurate way to use one. And, a mouse is not feasible for use with a handheld gaming device. Kindly extract head from rectum before posting.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"